


Once Upon A Time

by Arnaa



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: AU, Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 00:38:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnaa/pseuds/Arnaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a medaeval world, a Guide follows a prophecy to find his one true Sentinel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon A Time

    This story is inspired by Ljc’s  [XJ-Fuga.](http://onesentineloneguide.freehosting.net/XJ-Fuga-1.html)   When I first read it, I got to the point where Jim and Blair make their first jump into other-space, and the scene of a Guide claiming his Sentinel in a mediaeval courtyard flashed into my mind.  No idea why, cos XJ-Fuga is a space adventure and what came into my head is more in the fantasy genre, but hey, the Muse takes her inspiration where she finds it.   
     
Thanks to Cheryl R for suggesting the title.

Not betaed, so read at your own risk.  “:^D

 

 

As the riders neared the gates of the castle perched atop the rocky outcrop, Blair pushed back the hood of his travelling cloak and looked up at the forbidding walls.  High in the left hand turret he caught sight of a pale blur at a narrow window slit and his heart leapt in his breast.  Logically, he knew that blur could be any one of the castle’s inhabitants, but his soul knew this was his destiny.  His Sentinel, the one he had almost despaired of ever finding.

Through the formalities of being presented to his hosts and conducted to their quarters, through a luxurious bath that washed the travel stains and stiffness from his body, Blair responded appropriately to various people.  Now, standing at the narrow window slit to his sleeping room, he looked out across the rolling fields to the distant woods and hugged his happiness to himself.  By this time tomorrow, he would be a bonded Guide.

He startled as a heavy arm dropped around his shoulders, and turned his head to smile up at the dark face of his younger brother.

“Hey Daryl.”  His greeting was casual, but something must have shown in his face because his brother’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.

“He’s here, isn’t he?  Your Sentinel is here.”

Blair’s smile grew until his face hurt.  “Just like your vision foretold.”

Daryl let out a whoop, and pulled him into a hug.  “Oh man, you have no idea how relieved I am to hear that!  I couldn’t sleep last night for worrying that I’d got it wrong.”

“Not a chance.”  Blair hugged him back, and took a moment to bless the fate that had taken him from half-starved bastard child to beloved son of a wealthy House.  And speaking of which…

“Where is everyone?” he asked as he stepped back from the hug.

“Father is meeting with Lord William, Rafe and Henri are checking on the men and horses and Joel is making sure the kitchen is up to his standard.  Mother and Megan are in our common area, being patronised by the Lady Grace.”  Darryl grimaced.  “She’s too full of her own consequence to appear neglectful of any hostess duties, but she thinks Mother is beneath her and that she allows Megan far too much familiarity for a handmaid.  Don’t even get me started on what she thinks about Rafe and Henri and Joel sharing our quarters.  And she’s miffed the Guide her House is making all this fuss over isn’t out there pandering to her beauty.”

“Sheesh Daryl, don’t hold back.  Tell me what you really think of the Lady.”

Daryl ducked his head, then looked up through his lashes.  “I can’t help what my gift tells me about people.”

“I know.”  This time, Blair was the one who initiated the hug, and not for the first time wished he could strangle his brother’s birth mother.  Even after all these years, Daryl’s insecurities still surfaced at odd moments, a legacy from her reaction to the first signs that her son had the gift of Sight.

Daryl gift had begun to manifest in his sixth year and the Lady Joan had seen it as a sign that her son was possessed by a devil.  She had been determined to scourge that devil out of her son; and by the time his father had returned from his protracted absence as part of the entourage delivering the Queen’s youngest daughter to her new husband’s homeland, the boy barely spoke a word and hardly dared to move for fear of his mother’s wrath.  Lord Simon had immediately put an end to his wife’s regime, and gently encouraged the frightened child to develop what he believed to be a valuable gift that could only enhance the prosperity of his House.

In response, Lady Joan had renounced both her husband and son, and entered the cloister with the avowed intention of purging her immortal soul from any responsibility for bringing such a devil child into the world.  Some months thereafter, Lord Simon had discovered Blair begging for shelter for his ill mother and had taken the pair under his protection.  From there the four of them had become a family, each wounded heart blossoming and interlocking until it was hard to know where one began and the other ended.

“But I love you for wanting to and I’m really, **really** , glad we’re adding a Sentinel to our House instead of losing a Guide.”




“Hah, just try to get rid of me,” Blair retorted, stroking a gentle hand over his brother’s crinkly black hair until the younger man gave him a final squeeze and pulled back.  “Come on, lets go pander to the Lady Grace’s beauty before she patronises Mother enough to make Megan lose her temper.”

They both shivered at the thought of Megan’s fiery temper.  Fiercely loyal, the redheaded handmaid would ignore a personal insult much more readily than any real or perceived slight to her Lady.

 

James lay curled up in a wretched ball on the bed in his sparsely furnished room. He had watched the entourage arrive the day before, and as one of them had raised his head to look up just before they rode under the archway, he had instinctively known this was the Guide. His erratic senses had chosen that moment to flare into life, to let him be almost able to count the long, dark lashes framing big, dark blue eyes that seemed to read his soul in that fleeting moment of contact.  Logically, he knew it was just his imagination because only a Sentinel could see that clearly at that distance, but the notion refused to leave his mind. It was irrelevant anyway; his father had made it clear that this alliance was too important to risk insulting this particular Guide by presenting a Sentinel with unstable senses and a death wish.

Almost a year ago, his senses had unexpectedly returned after going dormant in his tenth year, and he’d spent too many years fighting his father’s determination to control his life to simply hand that control over to a Guide. He was fully aware that by refusing to bond he was signing his own death warrant, but at least he would die free; and the fact that his dying bondless would aggravate the father who had relentlessly schemed for an alliance with an influential Guide was just an added bonus.

When the presentation ceremony began, his hearing acted without permission and locked on the warm tenor of the Guide’s voice. He sternly ignored the churning in his gut at the thought of this Guide bonded to one of the Sentinels in the courtyard, all so obviously unworthy him, and waited to see which one would be chosen.  Instead they were all rejected, one after the other, until there was nothing left except that sublime voice insisting repeatedly that there was another Sentinel in the keep, finally forcing the embarrassing admission from his father--

_"My oldest son is also a Sentinel."_

_"Why haven't you presented him?"_

_"He inherited the Sentinel trait from my first wife --"_

Denying all responsibility, James thought bitterly, as though his father hadn’t deliberately chosen a wife whose family had carried that trait over generations to add the power and prestige of Sentinel children to his House.  He allowed himself a moment of perverse pride at how well he’d ruined those plans as his father continued,

 _“--His senses are unstable and even knowing he’ll soon die, he refuses to bond."_ More than his senses are unstable is implied with that last piece of information, but James has learned to shrug that off.  A few weeks, perhaps a couple of months at the most, and none of it will matter any more.

 _“I would still like to meet with him.”_ The Guide quietly repeated that sentence in response to each of his father’s attempts to dissuade him, until his father finally surrendered and dispatched his equally reluctant brother to fetch him.

He listened to the feet clattering up the stairway to his room, and didn’t even bother opening his eyes when the door was shoved open without preamble. “I’m not interested.”

“I don’t care.” Stephen nodded to his henchmen and they roughly manhandled his brother to his feet. He was pale and gaunt, with red welts decorating his skin, but Stephen felt no compassion for his obvious misery. “For some reason the Guide wants to see you, and with the settlement his clan is offering, what this Guide wants he gets. If you do anything to lose us that settlement, I’ll make you sorry you were ever born.”

Contempt blazed in the Sentinel’s light blue eyes. “Too late for that, junior.”

The grunt of pain his fist caused when it connected to his brother’s stomach gave Stephen a flare of satisfaction, and a jerk of his head had James dragged from the room. They pulled him along the corridor and down the stairwell, and knowing it was futile to resist, he concentrated instead on keeping his feet under him.

At the edge of the courtyard, the group paused just out of view from the crowd gathered there, then the henchmen gave him a shove that sent him staggering into the courtyard. He winced as the bright sunlight hit his eyes and Stephen’s grip on his arm, outwardly a brother’s steadying hand, dug painfully into the nerves just above his elbow. In spite of the pain, James stopped well before he was in touching range of the Guide. Stephen couldn’t force him any closer without an undignified scuffle, and he knew his brother would never risk appearing foolish in public.

“Remember what I said,” Stephen hissed, before releasing his arm and stepping away to return to his seat on the dais.

James resisted the urge to rub his arm where the fingers had dug into him, and regarded the Guide warily. Others, their ambitious eyes fixed on being Guide to the eldest son of a wealthy and well-connected House, had tried to overwhelm him when he refused to bond voluntarily, slamming against his barriers in an attempt to make bonding more attractive than fighting the painful overload. His barriers were already frayed, the sunlight lancing painfully through his head, his clothes like sandpaper against his skin, the noise and smell of the gaping crowd almost overwhelming. He wouldn’t go down without a fight, but fear stabbed through him with the knowledge that he didn’t have the strength to resist long enough to make this one give up on the idea of bonding with him.

But unlike the other Guides, this one didn’t try to push his way into James’s mind. Instead, he felt a light caress against the edge of his consciousness, like a cool breeze on a hot summer day, and then the other’s barriers dropped, inviting him into the Guide’s mind. That show of trust stunned him; with the Guide’s mind wide open like this, James could easily inflict agony if he so chose.

Then the Guide smiled encouragingly, his blue eyes filled with warmth as he held out his hand and spoke the traditional words. “I would take thee for my Sentinel. Wilt thou have me for thy Guide?”

Protocol demanded that if he wanted this, he should go to the other man, take the offered hand in his as he went down on one knee, and touch his forehead to the back of the hand, symbolically handing over control of his senses to the Guide. With the others, even the thought of this submission had revolted him, but now instinct over-rode his brain and dropped him untidily to both knees.

Breaking protocol, the Guide came to him. He reached out blindly, wrapping both arms tightly around the Guide’s hips and pressing his face into the soft curve of the Guide’s stomach. A hand at the back of his neck pressed him even closer and he instinctively opened his mouth to breathe, the promise of what he now knew was his one true Guide would taste like carried on his scent. Then his Guide’s mind enveloped him; his delight at his Sentinel’s acceptance clear in the psychic wave that surged over and through and around him, muting the outside stimulus that had been so painful only moments before. He pushed into the fingers softly combing through his ragged hair and, for the first time since his mother’s death, knew—

_Safe._

_Loved._

_Wanted._

How could he have ever feared this?

Then his Guide was speaking, the words rumbling through his body and vibrating against James’s face where it was still pressed into him. “Lord William, I wish to renegotiate the settlement.”

“No!” He heard his father lurch to his feet, and knew without looking his face would be dark with anger. “The settlement is a fair price for joining with a Sentinel from this House. You won’t cheat me by choosing an unstable reject, and then demanding a discount!”

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

_Not loved, not wanted._

_Marked down._

The hand at his neck tightened, and such a fierce blaze of _Want, Need, **Mine!**_ surged down their fledgling link that his heart stuttered.

“You misunderstand, my lord.” Anger threaded his Guide’s voice, belying the gentle way his fingers continued to stroke through James’s hair. “For a Sentinel such as this one, my House will pay five times the agreed amount.”

Such a settlement was unheard of. In the stunned silence that reverberated through the courtyard, he risked a glance up at his Guide and basked in the love that shone from those incredible blue eyes.

“Five times!” Under cover of the babble now exploding around them, Lord Simon groaned and buried his face in his hands. “The boy will bankrupt us!”

“Nonsense,” Lady Naomi returned briskly. “It’s not like your eldest son claims his Sentinel every day.”

“Father.” Daryl patted him consolingly on the arm. “It **is** necessary.”

“Well, I just hope you’re both still as happy about this when you want new clothes or another horse, and the treasury is bare.”

Over his bowed head, two pairs of amused eyes met, and a small, wifely hand joined the consoling patting. They both knew his outrage at this depredation of his treasury would never survive Blair asking forgiveness while fixing large, anxious eyes on his father and trembling his bottom lip. By the time they reached home, Lord Simon would be boasting to anyone he could buttonhole that his son had been chosen by a Sentinel worth a larger settlement than had ever been recorded in the history of the land.

In the centre of the courtyard, Blair carefully raised his Sentinel to his feet, and laid a hand against his cheek, happiness catching at his heart as the other man leaned into his touch. Voice Sentinel soft, he made his first promise to his bond-mate.

“This is just the beginning, my Sentinel. There will come a time when your father will claim he was cheated because the settlement wasn’t enough for such a Sentinel as you are.”

And because his Guide said so, James believed it, a small smile curling his lips upwards in anticipation of that day.

 

 

BONDING DAY FROM BLAIR'S POINT OF VIEW

          Blair slowly drifted awake, luxuriating in the glow of well-being wrapped around him.  Today, he would bond with his one true Sentinel, the other half of his soul and his life would finally be complete.

He knew how incredibly lucky he was that his life hadn’t ended in a filthy gutter all those years ago, unwanted and unlamented, overcome by hunger and disease.  His mother wouldn’t have survived much longer is Simon hadn’t rescued them, and if she had died, he would have followed her soon after.

And yet, now he was the beloved son of a wealthy and influential house about to bonded to his one true Sentinel.  Blair hugged that delicious thought to his heart, and the gleeful wriggle he was unable to suppress drew a moan of protest from Daryl.

His brother had crawled into bed with him the night before, and they had slept curled up together like a pair of puppies.  When they had first met, the traumatised boy had clung tenaciously to the one they didn’t know would later develop into a powerful Guide.  As he healed, Daryl’s need for contact had lessened, but they still shared a bed whenever either needed the comfort close contact with his beloved brother always brought.

Blair grinned as Daryl snuffled into his shoulder, and poked his brother in the side.  Daryl wriggled and muttered in protest, and when Blair poked him again, lifted his head to peer blearily at his brother.

“You are such a pain, you know that right?”

Blair’s grin widened.  “But you love me anyway.”

In spite of his annoyance, Daryl found himself smiling back.  “Yeah, I do.”  Then the memory of what this day was crashed in on him, and his smile died.  “I’ll miss having this with you.”

“Oh hey, no.”  Blair patted his cheek soothingly.  “We can still do this any time you need to.”

“But your Sentinel—”

“Will understand.  Once we’re bonded, he’ll know what this means to me, and he’ll let you come to us whenever you need to.”

A wicked grin curved Daryl’s mouth.  “You’ll be a Blair sandwich.”

“I’ll show you sandwich!”  Pretending outrage, Blair wrestled him over onto his back and ruthlessly tickled him.  Laughing helplessly, Daryl fought back until they were both hopelessly tangled in the bedclothes, and ended up rolling off the edge of the bed.

“Ow!”  Rubbing the back of his head, Daryl struggled into a sitting position.  “Are you all right?”

“No,” Blair sulked from somewhere under the blankets.

After a few false starts, Daryl finally managed to get his brother’s head unwrapped.  Flushed and dishevelled, Blair glared at him before bursting into a fit of infectious laughter.  They hauled each other out of the twisted blankets and onto their feet, then leaned against each other as they tried rather ineffectually to get themselves under control.

“Good morning, my sons.”  Neither of them had hear Naomi come into the room, and startled at the sound of her voice.  “It does my heart good to find you in such spirits on this day.”

“Good morning, Mother.”  As one, they moved to meet her, each sliding an arm around her waist and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“That’s a very fetching robe you’re wearing, Mother mine,” Daryl added, surveying the lacy confection with a practiced eye.

Lady Naomi sniffed.  “I may choose to live in the countryside my son, but I refuse to be _provincial_.”

“Heaven forbid,” Blair agreed with an exaggerated shudder.  “Where’s Father?”

“Having his bath and swearing about having to wear his formal clothes for a whole day.”

Her sons grinned at each other over her head, each of them able to clearly picture the scene in their minds.  Their father had an impressive vocabulary when roused, and he hated wearing his formal clothes with a passion; but his pride in both his House and his about to be bonded son wouldn’t allow him to be anything other than dressed to the nines for the occasion.  Especially in such a coldly formal and pompous House as this one had turned out to be.

“And speaking of baths,” Lady Naomi continued, “the servants are bringing a large tub in here for the pair of you.  I’m afraid the Lady Grace was rather shocked when I told her you’d rather attend each other than have a servant on an ‘auspicious’ day like this.”  She paused to grind her teeth together for a moment.  “The stupid woman couldn’t seem to understand you’d want to be together for exactly that reason.  Heaven knows what her reaction would be if she realised the pair of you still puppy pile on occasion.”

“There isn’t much warmth in this household,” Blair agreed.  “I’m beginning to think we might be rather a shock to my Sentinel.”

Lady Naomi patted him on the cheek.  “Never mind, my son.  Once we get him to ourselves, it won’t take long to get the stick pulled out of his Sentinel backside.”

“Mother!”  Blair half-laughed and half-scolded.  A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a large wooden bath-tub, and a procession of servants lugging hot water to fill it.

“Wear your usual clothes to breakfast, my sons,” Lady Naomi instructed them over the bustle.  “As much as the idea of sending the Lady Grace off in an apoplectic fit appeals, showing up at the Presentation with food stains on our clothes is more than my pride could stand.  Not to mention what your father would have to say about it.”

“Mother, Rafe will be dressing us,” Daryl reminded her.  “You know there’s no way he’ll let us out of this room until we’re perfection itself.”

Lady Naomi hugged her sons before gently disengaging herself and flitting towards the door.  “You boys and your father are such a sad trial to that poor boy.  One day, he’ll leave us for someone who spends all their time at Court and does him justice.”

The young men just grinned at each other as she pronounced that dire threat.  As much as the lack of male sartorial splendour in their household frequently drove the man to loud declarations of despair, all of them knew Rafe would chew his own arm off before he left the family.  And if by some mischance a brain fever ever did make him decide to leave them, well, Blair and Daryl would just track him down and sit on him until he agreed to come back anyway.  So either way, they were stuck with each other, and more than content to be so.

 

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

 

Finally, it was time for the Presentation to begin.  The family gathered in the room behind the archway that led into the courtyard where the Presentation would be held.  As the family’s major domo, Joel would announce Blair to the crowd before he walked through the archway escorted by Daryl, followed by their parents; then Joel would join Rafe Henri and Megan would in the procession.

Rafe gave one final twitch to the cape swinging from Blair’s shoulders, then nodded firmly.  “You’ll do.”

“Thanks.”  Blair huffed out a nervous breath and tried to make his hands stop shaking.  He’d been fine up until the moment they’d lined up for the procession, then the reality had slammed into him.  His one true Sentinel was out there in the courtyard, and the bonding he’d dreamed of all these years was about to become a reality.

When he heard Joel announce him, he laid his hand on Daryl’s arm and they were moving.  Out into the sunlight, across the courtyard, to the base of the platform where Lord William, Lady Grace sat with the rest of their retinue.  Jewels sparkled among the fine cloth of their robes, a wealthy House displaying its substance for all to see.

Lord Stephen, the son of the House, waited for them at the base of the platform.  Lord William and Lady Grace rose to their feet, the families bowed to each other, then Daryl escorted Blair to the raised dais in the centre of the courtyard, and carefully seated his brother in the elaborate chair there.  He gave Blair one last encouraging smile before moving to behind the chair, and Lord Stephen escorted the others of their party to their place of honour.

When his family had taken their seats, the Sentinels being Presented filed into the courtyard and formed a line at the base of the platform where the families sat.  As Lord William gave a grandiloquent but mercifully brief speech, Blair looked at the Sentinels gathered for the Presentation.  They looked back with equal curiosity, and he didn’t need to extend his mind to pick up the thrum of excitement and hope buzzing through the waiting Sentinels.

Except for one, a blonde, very pretty female who gazed back at him with predatory intent and licked her full, pink lips lasciviously.  Blair had a fine appreciation of the female form in all its infinite variety, but there was something about this woman that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  He shifted uncomfortably and looked away, thankful that whoever he bonded to this day, it would not be that particular Sentinel.

It also puzzled Blair that he couldn’t sense the Sentinel he’d glimpsed the day before.  The other had been too far away to be more than a smudge of white face against the narrow window slit, but he had felt the connection spring into life between them regardless of the distance.  His Sentinel was male, of that he was sure, both from that brief contact and from Daryl’s prophecy, yet where was he?

The first Sentinel was announced and moved towards the dais.  Mindful that he needed to at least give the appearance of taking each candidate seriously, he greeted the nervous Sentinel kindly.  A brief touch of their minds was more than enough to confirm what Blair already knew; this was not the Sentinel with whom he was destined to bond.

The obviously disappointed Sentinel took his dismissal with good grace, and walked back across the courtyard as the next approached.  The set the pattern for all the Sentinels who followed, until the blonde woman stood before him, the last of those to be Presented.

As the others were rejected one by one, her confidence had grown, and now she raked hot eyes over him, not even trying to be subtle.  Repulsed, Blair shrank back into his seat, and Daryl moved to stand next to him, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Madam, you forget yourself!”

“Get off your high horse, little man,” she sneered back.  “I’m the only one left, and your precious Guide does more than well for himself in being matched with this House.”

Her attention shifted back to Blair.  “You’ve already rejected all the others.  So stop messing about, and come with me so we can seal our bond.”

The watching crowd, already aware something unusual was happening but unable to hear what was being said, gasped at the breech of protocol as the Sentinel extended an imperious hand towards the Guide.  The other Sentinels heard each word clearly and shifted uneasily; instinct urged them to protest the rude treatment of the Guide, but the Guide’s own brother was at his side, and the Guide himself had yet to formally reject the blonde’s advances.

Blair could feel her against the edge of his barriers and shivered.  She was physically appealing, usually the type of woman he’d enjoy spending time with, but her mental touch was cold, almost clammy, and somehow fractured.  The thought of being bonded to this Sentinel made his skin crawl, and without conscious thought he sought the one whose mind he’d touched so briefly the day before.

And _yes,_ the Creator be thanked, there he was; his psychic touch was weaker than it had been yesterday, but it was enough to wash away the smirch left by the pretender.  Blair let out the breath he hadn’t know he was holding and surged to his feet, all uncertainty gone.

“About time!” the pretender huffed, reaching for him.

“I will not bond with you.”  He stepped around her and off the dais, striding towards the platform where the families sat, only vaguely aware of the scuffle behind him as his brother restrained the pretender.  “Where is the last Sentinel?”

“All eligible Sentinels have been Presented to you.”

Blair frowned as he caught the implications of that.  “Who hasn’t been Presented?”

Lord William exchanged a grim look with his wife, before reluctantly admitting, "My oldest son is also a Sentinel."

"Why haven't you Presented him?"

"He inherited the Sentinel trait from my first wife."  Lord William’s face twisted in distaste.  “His senses are unstable and even knowing he’ll soon die, he refuses to bond."

Blair frowned as he realised Lord William was suggesting more than his son’s senses were unstable.  Yet he knew he hadn’t been mistaken about the one he’d glimpsed on entering the castle being his one true bond-mate, and this Sentinel hadn’t been among those Presented to him.  It was highly unlikely the keep had two Sentinels of bonding age who hadn’t been Presented, so the missing Sentinel had to be his.

“I would like to meet with him.”

“I would be failing in my duty to both your House and mine if I presented a Sentinel unfit for bonding.”

“I would still like to meet with him.”

And so it went, until Lord William had no more excuses to give in the face of Blair’s iron clad determination to at least set eyes on this Sentinel.  With bad grace, he dispatched his equally unhappy second son, and Blair waited in the bright sunshine for his destiny to come to him.

Blair was unable to hold back a shocked gasp as the Sentinel appeared.  He was pale and gaunt, and red welts decorated his skin.  He squinted in the bright sunlight and the way he moved told Blair the rub of cloth over the welted skin was painful.  His obnoxious brother finally abandoned the death grip on his elbow, and walked back to join his parents, yet the Sentinel still didn’t come any closer.

 _James_.  Using the name Lord William had let slip in their exchanges, Blair sent his mind out to touch the Sentinel’s, careful to just brush lightly against the other’s barriers.  The fear and misery even that light touch showed him made him want to leap up onto the platform and beat all three members of James’s family into a bloody heap.

He knew he had only moments to gain the trust of this battered and weary Sentinel.  Taking a deep breath for courage, he did the only thing he could think of, and dropped his barriers, inviting the James into his mind.  It was a risk; if he so chose, the Sentinel could inflict agony on him with his mind wide open like this.  Instead, all he felt was the other’s stunned disbelief at his action, and hope leaped in his heart as he held out his hand and spoke the traditional words.

“I would take thee for my Sentinel. Wilt thou have me for thy Guide?”

Protocol demanded that if James wanted to bond with him, he should come to Blair, take the offered hand in his as he went down on one knee, and touch his forehead to the back of Blair’s hand, symbolically handing over control of his senses to his Guide.  Blair could feel the emotions tumbling through the other man and ruthlessly suppressed his anger at the other Guides who had tried to force James to bond against his will.  The fragile Sentinel would only read the anger and not understand it wasn’t aimed at him; so for the timeless moment they stood locked in the ancient tableau of Choosing, Blair concentrated on keeping his mind open to the other so James would have no doubt just how much this Guide wanted him.

But instead of moving towards him to complete the ritual, James dropped to his knees, like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut.  Without being aware he’d moved, Blair found himself beside his Sentinel, the other man’s arms wrapped around his hips and his face pressed desperately into Blair’s stomach.  To his delight, he felt the almost physical sensation of his mind wrapping around James’s as together they rebuilt the Sentinel’s frayed barriers, muting the stimulus that had been so painful only moments before.  Instinctively, his fingers combed through the ragged hair, and joy surged through him as the other pressed into his touch, safe/loved/wanted humming contentedly through their fledgling link.

Blair looked towards the platform where their families sat.  His own radiated happiness that he’d finally found his one true Sentinel, and he sent a huge grin their way.  The grin died abruptly as he caught the expressions on the faces of James’s family.  The three of them looked like there was a highly unpleasant smell directly under their noses, and he had the burning urge to rub their faces in just how badly they undervalued their son and brother.

“Lord William, I wish to renegotiate the settlement.”

“No!” Lord William lurched to his feet, his face dark with anger. “The settlement is a fair price for joining with a Sentinel from this House. You won’t cheat me by choosing an unstable reject, and then demanding a discount!”

The despair he felt from James at his father’s accusation broke Blair’s heart.  His hand tightened around the other’s neck, pressing him closer, projecting _Want_ _, Need **, Mine!** _  as hard as he could while fighting the urge to disembowel the father.  Slowly, with a blunt and rusty spoon.

“You misunderstand, my lord.”  Blair made a conscious effort to keep his fingers gentle as they continued carding through James’s hair.  “For a Sentinel such as this one, my House will pay five times the agreed amount.”

Such a settlement was unheard of. In the stunned silence that reverberated through the courtyard, he felt James move and looked down to see light blue eyes peeking cautiously up at him.

Ignoring the babble that had now broken out among the spectators, Blair carefully raised his Sentinel to his feet and laid a hand against his cheek.  Happiness caught at his heart as the other man leaned into his touch, and voice Sentinel soft, he made his first promise to his bond-mate.

“This is just the beginning, my Sentinel. There will come a time when your father will claim he was cheated because the settlement wasn’t enough for such a Sentinel as you are.”

He watched his certainty of that seep into his Sentinel.  James didn’t believe it yet, but he now had no doubt that his Guide did.  And from the small smile curling his lips upwards, he liked that idea just as much as Blair did.

Together, they would be unstoppable.

THE END

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